A court has been urged to convict a former Nationalist MSP of the “systematic
physical and emotional abuse” of three ex-wives.

Bill Walker, 71, was said to be violent, domineering and controlling, while at times treating the allegations against him with an air of “dismissive arrogance”.

Les Brown, prosecuting, urged Sheriff Katherine Mackie to find the independent MSP for Dunfermline guilty of 23 charges of physical assault and one of breach of the peace between 1967 and 1995.

He added: "I would submit that Mr Walker's violent past behaviour has indeed caught up with him, and that the investigation into his conduct has revealed evidence, led in this court, which supports the veracity and the reliability of the testimony of his ex-wives.

"I would ask you to accept that this behaviour over the years and decades was indeed violent, domineering, controlling and relentless.”

Walker, an ex-SNP MSP, denies a string of assaults against three former wives and a teenage step-daughter.

Mr Brown said all three former wives described similar behavior, adding: "William George Walker was controlling in his behaviour.

“He attempted to control the lifestyles of his ex-wives. He undermined their confidence, he was domineering and made them feel undervalued and worthless."

The fiscal said there was also evidence of "regular uncontrollable bursts of temper or rage during which he shouted verbal abuse."

He added that there was evidence of "strikingly similar behaviour" by Walker towards Maureen Traquair and Diana Walker, who each described separate unprovoked assaults shortly before their respective weddings to him.

In the aftermath of the assaults, said the fiscal, there was no contrition and the incident was simply not mentioned again.

Mrs Traquair told the court she sustained a black eye shortly before their wedding, while Anne Gruber kept diaries in 1983 and 1984 that were “nothing less than a contemporaneous catalogue of physical and emotional abuse”.

Gordon Martin, defending, said his client should be acquitted of all charges, and said the sheriff had to address the “difficulty” of why Mrs Traquair and Mrs Gruber both went back to him if he was “so bad”.

He added that his third wife, Mrs Walker, described him as "a caring and home-centred man with an unexceptional temper" in information given in connection with other court proceedings.

"That is the true picture of Mr Walker," said Mr Martin. He added that there were no accusations levelled against his client from 1995 onwards.

Sheriff Mackie, who heard the trial over nine days at Edinburgh Sheriff Court, will give her verdict on August 22.

Walker, of Alloa, Clacks, declined to make any comment at the end of the proceedings.

He denies 22 charges of assault against Mrs Traquair, 66, Mrs Gruber, 71, the mother of his three sons, and 61-year-old Mrs Walker.

He also denies assaulting a step-daughter, Anne Louise Paterson, by striking her with a saucepan when she was aged 16 in 1978, and he denies one charge of breach of the peace by brandishing an air rifle.

He has lodged special defences of self-defence to three of the charges, including the allegation that he assaulted the teenager.